The present invention relates to detecting proper connection between male and female connectors, and more specifically, to using a plurality of sensors in the female connector to determine if the connection is proper.
Many wired data communication techniques mate a male connector with a female connector in order to establish data communication between a computing device and an external device or network (e.g., a LAN or WAN). To do so, the male or female connectors may include a latching mechanism that secures the male connector to the female connector once the connection is fully engaged. However, the user may not fully engage the latching mechanism, in which case, the female and male connectors do not establish data communication, or the latching mechanism may have failed which permits the male connector to move and not maintain the fully engaged connection. Alternatively, the user may have forgotten to plug in the male connector. In either case, the computing system cannot determine if the user has failed to make a proper connection, or whether the user has made a proper connection but the external device or network (e.g., a LAN) is unavailable. For example, the computing device may rely on the female and male connectors to establish data communication with a network device (e.g., switch or router). However, if the computing device cannot send data to or receive data from the network device, the computing device has no means for determining if the male/female connection is improper or if the network device is unavailable.